Published in the Harvard Business ReviewIn the beginning companies sold products. And then they sold services. In recent years, the fashionable suggestion has been that companies sell experiences and solutions, solving the needs and aspirations of customers.

I received many requests to analyse not only notorious project failures, but also study those projects that were extremely successful. On this occasion, I selected what we could claim to be the best commercial project ever run in history, the Purple project.

With the aim of learning from past failures, this section analyses, using a simplified framework developed over more than ten years, a notorious project that was poorly managed and was terribly unsuccessful. What is fascinating about all projects is that they all share a set of common characteristics, which, if well understood, soundly addressed, and actively managed; can increase the chances of success and minimize the risk of failure.

One of the most surprising project failures I came recently across was the one of the new Berlin airport. It is rare to see a project of such size fail, especially in Germany, a country known for its effectiveness, efficiency and planning capabilities.

Project Management has continued to evolve over the past years, becoming more and more relevant in both organizations and governments around the world. There are a few developments which I believe will become mainstream in 2016. I recently talked about this in Portfolio Manager with PMI Today. My views are based on my own experience as Head…

“If you want to make sure something doesn’t get done…. make it a project.” This is a common statement often heard from senior executives, including CIOs. Companies often have too many projects going on at one time. This leads to a high rate of failure, here’s a look at how to change that. This…

Over the past years I have seen Portfolio Management evolving from a purely administrative process attempting to more or less prioritise and select projects; to one of the most important frameworks to enhance the strategic dialogue amongst its management team, aligning them around the most critical strategic initiatives, and focusing the organisation on strategy implementation. This…

It is well known among the project management community that there is a glass ceiling in the career path of project managers (PMs). Only a tiny proportion have the opportunity to reach the top of the corporate ladder and land the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) job. In this article, I will prove – for the first time – that project managers have…

Lack of focus is one of the biggest hindrance organisations face in achieving their strategies. This issue is magnified by the fact that Human Beings tend to Disorderand Procrastination. In this article I will demonstrate the consequences of this lack of strong decision making and attention on what really matters, and the impact it has on the overal productivity of an organization as well…